Without Trust There is Nothing
by Mad Steph
Summary: Who is the 'she' Marcus was referring to in the finale? Erica/Hobbes. Spoilers for the season finale.


**A/N:** This was beta'd by my V!Buddy Jenny. Thank her for the 'mildly hot' bit, I am absolutely incapable of writing those.

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On their way out of the Church, she caught a glimpse of Chad Decker. Jack had made a movement towards him and she had tried to stop him – hadn't he caused them enough trouble already? But Jack assured her that everything would be just fine, that he knew how to handle Decker, and that she had more important things to do other than babysitting him.

She acquiesced begrudgingly and walked out the door with Hobbes by her side.

The silence weighed heavily between them. Something was off, Erica just knew it, just as they were about to part ways, she reached out to stop him. He turned toward her, the unexpected physical contact spreading a hint of surprise and confusion across his usually impassive face.

"Is everything all right?" she asked him.

"Why are you asking?"

"I don't know, you just seem quieter than usual … No snappy remark about 'Our heavenly Father's' resistance call?" she said, mimicking his tone.

"I would have thought you'd have enjoyed the break," he said gruffly, before turning away again.

She stopped him once more, a bit more forcefully this time, "Listen, Hobbes. If something's the matter, you know you can ..."

"I can what?" he asked sarcastically. "Confide in you? And then we can share our woes over a cup of tea? What do you even care anyway?"

"That's not fair, Kyle," his first name was rolling off her tongue much easier than she imagined it would. "Of course I care, we're a team. We're in this together, and it's going to be a difficult fight, so we have to be there for each other. If we keep pushing our only allies away, then we're screwed."

"So that's what all this is about, then?" he was up right in her face. "Your precious resistance. Keeping your assets in check, making sure your 'dirty job' man is still operational. Some things are bigger than that, Erica, bigger and more important."

He stopped, his breath was almost ragged, their faces only inches apart. They stared into each other's eyes, it was a game of silently daring the other to make the first move. In the end, she wasn't sure who lost but she found herself pressed against the nearest wall, his lips attacking hers.

Of their own volition, her hands travelled to his hair, twisting tufts between her fingers and grazing his scalp with her nails. He pulled her shirt out of her skirt and she felt the tips of his calloused fingers travel across the skin of her stomach, before he dug them into her hips.

It was desperate, it was primal, they both needed to feel something real, feel that the world as they had once known it hadn't completely faded away.

His hands betrayed his true nature, though, never staying in one place for long. They coasted across the plains of her torso, stopping to grasp frantically at the peaks of her breasts before flitting down to skim the barrier of skirt and thigh. Before she could utter even a murmur of protest, he had her skirt hiked up to her waist and was lifting her further up the wall. Instinctively, she lifted her legs and twined them around his waist, enjoying the roughness his jeans against her thighs. His stubble scraped against her cheek in the most deliciously painful way as his mouth continued to explore hers.

He pushed her skirt up past her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around him as he lifted her up. He was kissing her neck, his stubble slightly grazing her skin, in an enjoyably painful kind of way.

He was about to take her then and there, just around the corner from a catholic church, in broad street light, and had it not been for the car blasting its horn in a nearby alley, she would have probably let him.

But the minor interruption brought her back to her sense, albeit temporarily, and she whispered, huskily into his ear, "Not here..."

"You afraid of getting arrested for public indecency, Agent Evans?" he asked slyly, as he continued to push himself closer and closer to her. The way he had said that, even though she had her eyes closed, she could picture his smirk in her mind, with his eyebrows raised, taunting her, and god, he turned her on so much, but she had to stay lucid, focus, at least until they made their way behind closed doors.

"Something like that," she panted, as she climbed down form him.

–

She wasn't entirely sure how they had made it with a decent amount of clothes on, but they had eventually wound up in the Fifth Column basement that Hobbes had been using as a hideout since the FBI had busted his old place.

Clothes had been shed and lay discarded across the floor.

She was pretty sure a couple of the buttons from her blouse had been ripped off, but that didn't really matter as they lay in his bed, spent, her head leaning against his chest, and one of his arms draped around her, lazily drawing circles on her shoulder.

She couldn't get it out the back of her mind that she should be thinking about leaving, but the truth was, she hadn't felt this at ease in a while with a man, or any other human (or not human) being, for that matter. She didn't feel like leaving, and it wasn't as if he was actually attempting to kick her out, so she stayed.

–

She was on the verge of falling asleep when he spoke, "I have a daughter."

Her eyes blinked open, startled by this unexpected revelation. He sighed and went on, "She's ten, she lives with her mum in Sydney, I haven't seen her in years."

"When I met up with Marcus, earlier," he said, his voice a little more strained that it had been before. "He showed me a picture of her, told me they knew about her, and where she was. They said that unless I infiltrated the Fifth Column and gave them intel ..."

His voice trailed off, and for the first time since she had met him, he actually sounded vulnerable and her heart went out to him. At the end of the day, they were more alike than she would have been willing to admit a couple of months ago.

"We can deal with this, we can sort things out. It'll be fine," she tried to be reassuring?

"Oh really? Do you really think I want to help Anna and her merry gang of lizards take over the world?" he asked, suddenly shifting into sitting position, bringing her up with him. "It doesn't look like I have much of a choice here though, does it? I'm sorry Erica, but I have to make a choice ..."

"But ..."

"What if it was Tyler?" he exclaimed. "What if it was your son? Don't tell me you wouldn't switch sides in a flash, if his life was at stake."

"I'm not saying you should pick us over your daughter, I would never even think of asking that, but what if there was another way ..."

"Another way?"

"Yeah … A way to do both, keep your daughter safe and still be in the resistance."

He squinted slightly.

"They don't know you're already Fifth Column, do they?"

"No," he replied, giving her his 'what do I look like, an amateur?' face.

"So for them, you're infiltrating us, but in fact you'll be infiltrating them and feeding us back the info you get on them."

"An undercover mission."

"I honestly don't know a better man for the job," she said honestly.

He looked at her blankly for a minute, and she worried that he might bite her head off, because it was a risky plan, a very risky plan, that put both their lives and their loved ones lives in danger, but what other option did she have? The Fifth Column needed him, she needed him, she couldn't sit back and let him go to the enemy, but if he did, she wouldn't be able to hold it against him, if she were in his position, and it was Tyler they were threatening, as painful as it would be, her choice would be easy.

"It could work," he finally said. "Yeah, it just might work, but if we're going to do this, we have to do it right. I need to know that you have my back, because we're going all in here, and if either of us gets caught, we're going to lose big."

"Absolutely," she assured him. "You can count on me."


End file.
